Risk Factors for Shoulder Redislocation Examined

FRIDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) -- The risk for redislocation among patients who have had a corrective arthroscopic procedure may be linked to younger age, male gender and longer duration between injury and surgery, according to an Italian study in the November issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

Giuseppe Porcellini, M.D., of D. Cervesi Hospital in Cattolica, Italy, and colleagues tracked 385 patients with anterior unidirectional instability in the shoulder joint, whose condition was managed with an arthroscopic Bankart technique. The researchers collected demographic data and performed clinical follow-up at three, six, 12, 24 and 36 months to assess the rate of redislocation and associated risk factors.

At 36 months, the researchers found that 8.1 percent of the subjects had a redislocation. For the 98 subjects aged 22 years and younger, the dislocation rate was 13.3 percent, while it was just 6.3 percent for the 287 subjects over 22 years of age. The major risk factors identified included age at the time of the initial dislocation (odds ratio, 0.46 for subjects less than 22 years of age), male gender (odds ratio, 3.65), and an interval of more than six months from the initial dislocation until surgery (odds ratio, 2.62).

"Patients who are more likely to have a redislocation following arthroscopic repair of an anterior shoulder dislocation can be identified preoperatively on the basis of sex, age, and the time from the first dislocation to surgery," the authors write.